


Not Yet

by cytheriafalas



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-08
Updated: 2015-11-08
Packaged: 2018-04-30 13:14:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5165123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cytheriafalas/pseuds/cytheriafalas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I meant to write OT3, but somehow, 2200 words in, I'd killed one third of my OT3.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Yet

**Author's Note:**

> I really never meant for this to happen. If you followed me on my [tumblr](http://fangirlingtendencies.tumblr.com), you may have seen me post about it.

Merlin had always known his world would come crashing down around his ears one day. It was inevitable in their line of work. But he’d thought he had more time. He should have had more time.

“Let me see you,” Merlin said, checking his tablet one last time for updates on the extraction team. He was sure he’d seen a mirror when the thugs had hauled Eggsy’s unconscious body into the room.

His view through the glasses shook back and forth.

“No, Merlin,” Eggsy’s voice was so rough he was barely recognizable. “’M not letting you see me like this. Is… is Harry there?”

“He’s coming,” Merlin promised. “He’ll be here soon. The German extraction team will be to you in fifteen minutes. Eggsy, love, just hold on. Germany has some of the best medics—“

Eggsy exhaled in what could have been a laugh, the view dropping from the door to his knees. “I don’t think they’re gonna be in time, Merlin.”

The door behind Merlin slammed open and then shut again. Quick footsteps and sharp breaths and Harry’s hands landed on Merlin’s shoulders hard enough to hurt, and Merlin accepted the pain. He deserved it. He’d missed something and now…

“’S that Harry?”

“I’m here.”

Eggsy must have nodded; the image rising and falling twice. “Good. I don’t wanna be alone. I don’t want Merlin to be alone. This isn’t his fault.”

“You’re never alone,” Merlin promised, ignoring the lancing pain through his chest. He couldn’t _do anything_. All he could do was sit here and see what Eggsy saw. He couldn’t even see the boy. He couldn’t comfort Eggsy.

“We’re here, darling,” Harry said. He finally sat, one hand on Merlin’s knee. “There’s still time. The team will be there soon.”

There was a soft sound from Eggsy’s side of the communications. Before Merlin could ask what it was, the view jerked upward, accompanied by a hiss of pain.

“You’ve had a chance to think,” a man’s voice said. “We can make this very easy for you. But you die either way, Mr. Secret Agent.”

“Fuck you,” Eggsy growled, voice strained.

“We’ve heard of you,” the man continued, and Merlin didn’t even know his name. He didn’t know where he’d come from or how long he’d been at the stupid hideaway in the Bavarian mountains that all his intel had sworn was empty. “We’ve heard about these glasses of yours. Is your handler watching you now?”

The glasses shifted, pulled from Eggsy’s face. Whoever had them carried them to a table across from Eggsy and set them down. The image adjusted a few times until Eggsy was properly framed in them.

They’d taken Eggsy’s suit and replaced it with some sort of shapeless robe. They’d given him that much dignity at least. He was bound to a sturdy chair bolted to the floor. There would be no tipping the chair over to break it and escape. And he was barefoot, nothing hidden in the sole of his shoe. He was hunched over as far as the binding would allow, hair falling in his face. Merlin could see blood and bruises on his skin.

Eggsy was breathing raggedly, leaning slightly to the left. A broken rib, probably. Maybe more than one. Merlin barely had the presence of mind to take a screen capture of the man’s face, sending it out for immediate identification and to the German extraction team with orders to kill on sight. Merlin didn’t care what the man knew. There were other ways of getting information.

From this new position, Merlin could see the other half of the room. Empty but for a table well out of Eggsy’s reach, with a handful of basic torture instruments, knives, lighters, vials with labels that Merlin thought read amobarbital, a few blunt rods probably made of metal, and a wooden baseball bat.

The man grabbed a fistful of Eggsy’s hair and yanked his head back. Eggsy didn’t make a sound this time, but the movement bared his throat which was covered in black bruises.

“Oh Eggsy,” Harry whispered.

“We’re going to kill him,” Merlin said. Eggsy rewarded him with the faintest of smiles.

“I’m talking to your handlers now, Mr. Secret Agent. Can they hear me?”

Eggsy’s lips thinned as he prepared to refuse to answer.

“It’s okay,” Harry said hastily. “It’s okay. Tell him we can hear him.”

“Yes,” Eggsy snarled. “Yes, they can hear you.”

Merlin’s tablet pinged an updated ETA. “They’ll be there in ten minutes, Eggsy. You’re going to be okay. You’re going to come home to us. Keep him talking.”

The man turned to address the glasses directly. His gaze was steady and unperturbed and Merlin felt a little sick. “I’ve been at this long enough to know when it will take more time to get an answer than I have. Your boy here is stubborn, and I think probably you have people on your way to rescue him. So, instead, I am going to show you what happens when I am denied what I want.”

Merlin barely cast a look at his tablet when it pinged again. The name Christof von Trapp appeared and he shook his head. The fucker couldn’t even be creative about his aliases.

“Christof” leaned over to look at the table, one hand still fisted in Eggsy’s hair. From their position, he and Harry could see the pain that flashed across Eggsy’s face. He was badly hurt, but Merlin couldn’t see _where_.

“You’re going to be okay, love,” Merlin said. “We’re here. Just let him keep talking.”

Christof had something small in his hand when he returned his attention to Eggsy. A knife, probably. As long as he missed any important arteries, Eggsy should survive the… seven more minutes… until the extraction team reached him.

“Stay strong for us,” Harry said. “Just a few more minutes.”

Christof held something thin between his two fingers and Merlin frowned. It wasn’t the knife. It was a needle and vial. What good would amobarbital do him? He had to have known they were all trained to resist truth serums and there wasn’t enough time for it to kick in fully.

“This is a highly concentrated… Well, you’re probably not smart enough to understand—“ Eggsy almost smiled at Merlin’s affronted snort, “but it works rather like an opiate. Unfortunately, I find it’s most useful over extended periods, so this won’t be a terribly painful way to die. You might even save him, if you’re very lucky. I like to give everyone a fighting chance.”

He wrenched Eggsy’s head to the side again and injected the clear serum into his neck. Eggsy shuddered, body going limp and his head falling forward as soon as Christof let go. Christof didn’t look back, slamming the door shut behind him when he fled.

Merlin grabbed his tablet and keyed up communications with the extraction team. “Where the hell are you?”

“Less than five minutes,” Elsa answered him. “We’re breaching the exterior doors.”

“He’s running.”

“We’ll get him, Merlin. Let us do our job.”

Merlin was going to argue further, but Harry’s hand on his wrist stilled him. Eggsy was laughing, a strange, stilted sound.

“‘M sorry you had to see this,” Eggsy said once he’d gotten his laughter under control. “I kinda hoped if I died before you that it’d be some sort of shit-show shootout. So you wouldn’t have to watch.”

“We’d rather it be like this,” Harry said. His voice was thick and Merlin took his hand for some way to keep his own from shaking. “If we can’t touch you, at least we can be with you.”

“Woulda been easier though.”

“No,” Merlin said. “Nothing about this is easy, love.”

He was watching for something that told him the drug was kicking in. Aside from the bout of laughter, which could have just as easily been hysteria as the drug, Eggsy seemed okay. 

“Wish I could see you,” Eggsy said. He’d straightened and was looking straight into the glasses. Straight into their eyes. Eggsy’s eyes were hazy with pain, but just as brilliant blue as they had been when Merlin had kissed him goodbye.

Merlin looked helplessly at Harry. He ached to take Eggsy in his arms and take the pain from him. He wanted to rip that fucking Christof von Trapp apart with his hands. If Elsa and Lohengrin didn’t kill him, Merlin was going to do it himself, as painfully as he knew how.

“You’ll see us when you get home,” Harry said. “We’ll be there when you arrive.”

Eggsy started coughing. Deep, rattling coughs that chased away the hope Merlin had begun to let grow in his chest. Eggsy struggled to breathe for a few too many heartbeats, then finally got one deep breath in. Then another.

“Harry?”

“Yes, darling?”

“Don’t…” another pause for a few ragged breaths. “Don’t let him blame himself. He couldn’t… couldn’t have known.”

“You can tell him that when you get home.”

There was a strange, subdued popping through the comms. Merlin had to look at his tablet to figure out what it was. “They’ve breached the doors, Eggsy. They’re going to be there any minute.”

“I don’t…” Eggsy trailed off, slouching forward. He let out a low, keening whine of pain that was half breathless sob.

“Eggsy?” Merlin asked. He knew he sounded terrified. He wasn’t Harry to be able to keep steady during this.

“Think they’re gonna make it in time.”

Harry put his arm around Merlin’s shoulders, tucking him in against his side. “We’re right here with you, Eggsy. We’re not leaving you to do this alone.”

Eggsy straightened in his chair, but his head still hung as though he didn’t have enough strength to lift it. Frothy blood speckled his lips and his chest rose and fell in rapid, gulping breaths.

Merlin couldn’t speak. He could barely watch as Eggsy coughed again, splattering blood on the ugly fabric on his knees.

“I think I,” deep, gasping breath, “punctured a lung,” breath, “when I coughed.”

“Just keep breathing for us,” Harry said. His voice was calm and steady and Merlin hated him until he caught a glimpse of the tears Harry tried to blink away. “You’re so strong, Eggsy. You can survive this.”

Eggsy whimpered when he shook his head. “I don’t… think so.” Another bout of coughing and a broken moan of pain. “I’m sorry.”

He wheezed when he breathed. His head kept dropping forward. His eyes couldn’t focus even when he managed to hold his head up long enough for Merlin to see him.

“M-Merlin?”

“Yes?”

“Please don’t leave me.” He paused for so long that if Merlin hadn’t been watching him fighting to draw in a breath, he would have thought he’d finished speaking. “I’m scared.”

“Be strong for him,” Harry murmured in Merlin’s ear. “He needs us both now.”

Merlin clamped his hand around Harry’s hard enough that it had to hurt, but Harry held on and nodded toward the screen.

“I’m not leaving you, Eggsy.”

Eggsy sobbed in relief. “I’m so… scared. I… don’t want to… be… alone.”

He knew it was no point to tell him how close rescue was. They were only moments away, but even if he was alive when they got there, he had almost no chance of surviving any longer than that.

“It’s okay to be afraid,” Merlin said, trying and failing to keep his voice as steady as Harry’s had been. “It’s okay, my love.”

“D-don’t let Harry… do anything stup…” Eggsy trailed off, forehead creased in confusion. He shook his head. “Stupid. Nothing… stupid.”

His breaths were growing shallower, his head drooped forward. Merlin wanted to scream or take Eggsy in his arms or do something, anything, but sit here and watch his young lover die.

“I won’t.”

“Mum… and D-Daisy.”

His voice was so soft they had to strain to hear him even with the volume turned all the way up.

“We’ll take care of them,” Harry said. “Roxy too.”

Eggsy nodded absently, lips parted, but his chest barely moved. “Love.”

“We love you, too,” Merlin said, finding himself biting back sobs.

“We always will,” Harry added.

Eggsy’s body convulsed once, then fell still, and his chest didn’t rise again. Merlin shoved away from the desk, sending his chair slamming back against the far wall. Harry stood up more slowly. He took Merlin in his arms and pulled him in tight. Merlin found himself sobbing against Harry’s neck.

A crashing came from the otherwise silent audio, and Merlin turned back to the screen. Lohengrin crossed straight to Eggsy’s side and searching for a pulse. His head bowed when he didn’t find anything, and he straightened, thumbing his communications on. The upper half of his body disappeared out of frame.

“Merlin?”

“I know,” Merlin said. “God, I know.”

More running footsteps and then Elsa swung into view. She drew up short. “Oh, Merlin, I’m so sorry. We came as fast as we could.”

“I know,” Merlin repeated. He couldn’t think. He didn’t understand the point of this. Elsa’s team should have just packed up and gone home. There was no reason for them to be there anymore.

“Did you get the bastard who did this to him?” Harry asked. His voice was tight with rage that didn’t translate into his gentle grip on Merlin. 

“Daland,” Elsa shouted.

Daland, a huge, hulking man, dragged this Christof von Trapp into the room. Without waiting for any orders, Elsa drew her gun, shoved it against his temple, twisted him so Eggsy was protected from the gore, and pulled the trigger. Daland opened his hand and the man’s body _thumped_ to the floor.

“We’ll clean Eggsy up and fly him home to you,” she said. “I’m so sorry, Merlin.”

Merlin didn’t realize his knees had given out until Harry was kneeling on the floor with him. Harry’s forehead was pressed to Merlin’s shoulder, his arms wrapped so tightly around Merlin’s body that it ached to breathe. That’s how Eggsy must have felt, but his ache progressed to pain. But Harry didn’t hold him tight enough to hurt. He could still breathe. There was no drugged fire in his veins or broken ribs cracking and shifting with every movement. He could still breathe and Eggsy was alone and dead in Germany.

“Harry.”

“I know.”

He’d had more than twenty years to prepare to lose Harry. He’d had _practice_ with Harry, times when he’d been sure there was no way for Harry to come home to him alive. But Harry had come home. And Eggsy hadn’t. He’d been so alive and so brilliant and so vibrant and Merlin had only had him for three years. He wasn’t ready.

“We’ll have to tell his mother.”

Harry nodded against his shoulder. “In a moment, I’ll have Percival call the Kingsman. Just… not yet.”

For now it was their grief and their loss. As soon as Harry told Percival, it became public. Eggsy no longer belonged to them, but to the rest of the Kingsman and to his family. They would have to face the well-meaning, pitying glances. And Merlin couldn’t. Not yet.

 


End file.
